This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art, which may be related to various aspects of the present invention that are described or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present invention. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Data and information have emerged as some of the most important assets a company can possess in the modern economy. Indeed, the ability of a particular company to efficiently generate, process and use information and data may directly impact the company's productivity and competitiveness. Communications and computer technologies have been developed to more efficiently process, use and store data. In particular, Storage Area Networks (SANs) have been developed and deployed to increase the efficiency of data and information access and storage. A SAN is a physical collection of interconnected storage enclosures, switches and servers with host bus adapters (HBAs), typically, all interconnected using Fibre Channel. The SAN allows for one or several servers to share a common storage device or a network of many different storage devices. Users on a network, such as a local area network (LAN) can access the SAN via the servers.
Occasionally, however, it may be necessary or desirable to replace a server. When a replacement server is placed into the system it may be unable to attach to the SAN because a new WWID would be associated with the new server and the SAN would not recognize the new server. Conventionally, manual intervention was required at the server console and on the SAN to reconfigure the SAN controller and SAN switches to allow the new server to attach to the SAN.